Archive for the ‘Relativity’ Category

You are an insignificant crumb of nothing. Your size, when compared with the sheer vastness of our known universe, is roughly that of an atom floating next to the island of Manhattan. We -you, me, everyone you’ve ever met- are all insignificant crumbs of nothing. If you could get a bird’s eye view of our entire universe, the vast collection of billions of interstellar shopping malls, you wouldn’t even be able to see our galaxy, the Milky Way. Neither would you see any of our neighboring galaxies, or even the large cluster of galaxies we reside inside; no, we are truly cosmically insignificant.

But, we are conscious. At least, we think so. Possibly, just possibly, the only conscious beings in the entire universe as unlikely as that seems. And each of us; you, me, your mother, that dog down the street, are all composed of atoms created in the Big Bang. We are all the same age, and we are all made up from what was once smaller than the head of a pin. You, your potted fern, and a stapler are all essentially the same.

Think about that.

St. YoYo, for an insignificant crumb of nothing, certainly took being evicted from his crumb of an apartment quite seriously. He was pissed off as he ran with his tacky turtle-shell suitcase to catch the crumb known locally as the Queen Streetcar.

As he ran to the streetcar, a large red star in a relatively nearby galaxy winked out for the final time, and collapsed upon itself, sucking everything -even rays of light- within millions and millions of miles into the hole it left behind. This star kicking the proverbial bucket would not be visible to people on Earth for six million years.

St. YoYo had no idea the star even existed.

Three large galaxies on the opposite side of the universe were swallowed up by a gargantuan super-galaxy which was spinning out of control, destroying stars and planets like a child destroying ants. St. YoYo was only aware of one other galaxy, our nearest neighbor, Andromeda, which will eventually collide with our galaxy, forming a super galaxy of our own. Perhaps, we too will careen out of control gobbling up star cities for the rest of time. Think of it as something to look forward to.

St. YoYo knew he had to find a place to stay, and at the same time was vaguely aware the universe was expanding, but had no idea that the more it expanded the faster it traveled. He had no idea that our ‘Big Bang’ was, in fact, the fifth big bang. The universe had been expanding and collapsing on itself for a googol’s worth of years. Or maybe a googol’s googol. Or a googolplex. At any rate, it’s been a while. St. YoYo had no idea this was the fifth try at a universe anymore than he was aware that he’d existed since the very first big bang. And, so have you.